Inhabited. Charlie Quimby

Night once had been. Not all of them were performers. Perhaps most kids preferred a more solemn event, appropriate to the idea their lives were about to change course. They could learn later that teachers could end up selling real estate, that poets made coffee for commuters, that engineers got laid off and lost their houses.

       This is their show now, not yours. Not even Helen’s.

      When Pandora collected her parchment, Donnie squeezed Meg’s shoulder. She turned, she thought, in appreciation, but her face must have told him it was time to go. He took her hand and ducked up the aisle.

      Refreshed by their spontaneous flight and the cool outside air, Meg wasn’t ready to go home. Donnie seemed to see that and headed her to the corner of Seventh where B.B. King’s “The Thrill is Gone” tramped and tumbled over the patio bar. A glass of the Entrada Cabernet would be nice, maybe two. She just had to make sure Donnie didn’t order a bottle because it would be all hers.

      As they waited for their drinks, she entertained him with an account of her conversation with Jay DeWitt. Normally, she would never discuss a client by name, but Donnie was in the excavation business and would have figured it out based on how few houses were going up right now. He chuckled at her idea of supplying high-grade fill to picky customers, once she explained what artisanal meant. Oh, it was lovely to laugh after this hard day! She started to ease out of her heels and stopped. The relief in her feet told her she might not get them back on.

      Donnie sipped his Windsor and Seven. “It’s been pouring out-of-town geniuses lately. I hear the mayor’s got you roped in with some corporate bigwig.”

      Where had he heard that? Eve had asked her to put together some ideas for an executive home tour and hinted that the related business might be substantial. But Meg didn’t even know the name of the man’s company yet.

      “All Eve’s told me is that he’s divorced.”

      This bit of non-news appeared to please Donnie. “Yeah, I thought the city was in on it. Everybody’s being so damn coy. At the Chamber meetings, Dan McCallam’s about to pee his pants with excitement but he’s keeping the news to himself. And Vince Foyer’s not as subtle as he thinks. He’s been poking around looking at good-sized parcels that are off the market. It’s hard for a developer to take a crap in this county without me at least smelling it.”

      It had been a long dry spell for Donnie’s gravel and paving businesses. Any development would be good news. He held plenty of commercial/industrial property around town, too.

      “It’s killing you not to know, isn’t it?”

      He bared his lower teeth and patted his wallet pocket. “Yeah, my tender little ego.” They laughed. “You’re looking perkier now.”

      There was no point withholding it. “Did you hear about the mess with Amy Hostetter this morning? I was down there when it happened.”

      “Are you okay? And here I been talking nothing but business.”

      He could be so sweet. Father sweet.

      “Your company’s been just what I needed. Listen, what if this tour I’m working on turns out to be related to your deal? Do you think Terri would let me show your summer house?”

      “It’s not for sale,” he said.

      “Just as an example. Glade Park should be on any tour of exclusive places to live. And for the full cultural experience, a ranch owner could show him around.”

      “I’ll check with the boss.” Donnie took her hand and wrapped it in both of his. “I’m glad you didn’t get hurt. They can’t clean up that shit hole fast enough to suit me.”

      As soon as Donnie left Meg at her car, she pulled off her heels and pitched them across the seat. Her third pair of shoes today—no, the fourth, counting the mudders. She had repackaged every part of herself at least twice for the day’s events and was now ready for a robe and that third glass of wine she’d turned down at the bar. But instead of heading straight home, she looped south toward the river where her morning began.

      Las Colonias Park wasn’t on anyone’s way, and that was its attraction to the homeless population. The feds had poured millions into clearing the ground of uranium tailings and the city had spent millions more to relocate junkyards and build a parkway to skirt the south edge of downtown. But the park itself had remained perpetually on the drawing board. Except for the Botanical Gardens, Las Colonias Park was only a barren river flats hemmed by a scraggle of tamarisk and split by a bike path.

      She pulled over near the last remnant of the old uranium mill across from the park and peered through the streetlamp flare. No one about. No lights coming from the camps. It was as if night had already absorbed the day’s horror into the bleak history of the place. There was nothing specific about such darkness. It could contain any dreadfulness, including the worst mistake of her life. The memory came back like a poorly fixed Polaroid, a bright white blank with smudges and shadows creeping to the foreground.

       Right over there. About this time of night.

      There was no Botanical Gardens building then. The junkyard had been off to the right and some shacks straight ahead where the hardpan was glazed in ghostly alkali blotched with crankcase oil. They had abandoned the Jeep there with the keys in the ignition, counting on some derelict to cover the vehicle with fingerprints. Their impulse turned out better than they had imagined. The Jeep ended up trashed near the Amtrak station in Salt Lake City, where everyone assumed Neulan Kornhauer had left it, after eluding the authorities closing in on him. Back in Grand Junction, security camera footage had showed the Choirmaster Killer fueling his vehicle and filling a reserve gas can on the day he disappeared. Then no more charge card transactions. No sightings. A decade later, investigators still combed coroner’s reports on young women who had fallen from high places, keen to pick up Neulan’s trail. Only Meg and Brian could tell them they should be searching instead for his bones.

      The lights of a police cruiser illuminated her car’s interior with the sad blue cast of a failing nightspot. Although she was driving barefoot, she hadn’t done anything obviously illegal. He’d see she was respectable. She watched in the mirror as he got out of the squad car and hitched himself in three places before beginning the slow walk to her side.

      “Everything all right, ma’am?”

      She’d had only two glasses of wine but wasn’t eager to pronounce the fact, and she was careful not to fumble the retrieval of her registration. He looked at her license, looked at her, then back to the picture, then to her, each time pausing a trifle longer.

      “You heading home now, Ms. Mogrin?”

      She nodded, thankful he hadn’t asked her to step out for a roadside exam.

      “Just because there’s no traffic doesn’t make it okay to stop here. It’s posted.”

      “I’m sorry. I was here this morning when Officer Hostetter got hurt. I came back to… offer a prayer.”

      “I’m sure she’d appreciate your concern.” He tapped the license on the window rim. “So you know this’s not a good area to be stopping this time of night.”

      “It’s on the way up, though, don’t you think? Someday, the city will come back to the river.” She couldn’t help it. Maybe that’s all her prayer was intended to be: something hopeful spoken over this bloodied soil.

      “I care about what happens tonight,” he said, returning her papers. “You drive home safe and leave the riverside to us.”

      She pulled away carefully and watched to be sure the officer didn’t follow. She couldn’t go home yet. That wasn’t a good place for forgetting, either.

      She headed for the Interstate, dropped her windows so the crosswinds buffeted the interior and pushed to a practically legal eighty. At the Palisade exit she circled back, desert scrub to her right, orchards and vineyards on the left, the city ahead glowing like a radium dial.

      It was